Street talk in Shanghai

Street talk in Shanghai:

“Nice bike,” said the Chinese man in English as my brother cruised by on his sleek fixed-gear ride. It was not the first time his bike had garnered praise in a city where bicycles number in the millions. But it signaled a burgeoning curiosity among average Chinese who increasingly view bike riding as a poor person’s activity.

A slow liberalization combined with rapid economic growth have quickly transformed this authoritarian country. In just two decades its financial center, Shanghai, has grown from a port city once broken into foreign concessions to a hub of trade, design and commerce. And with new cash to burn the city’s residents have snapped up cars and electric scooters, replacing the bikes that once ruled the roads. Cycling enthusiasts lament the fact that bikes are not as prevalent as they once were, but they take heart in knowing that the fixed-gear trend they’re backing could lead to a small, but powerful resurgence.

“Chinese people are very curious about how elegant, how simple a fixie looks,” said Lucy Liu, a web designer and founder of citybikr.com.
She spends her free time taking pictures of people out riding, an attempt to inject new interest in the city’s biking traditions. But it’s not biking that makes Shanghai stand out among Chinese cities – the entire country rides bicycles.

It is the combination of old and new, alternative versus state doctrine, capitalism against socialism against the ability to simply think and act freely. Liu calls Shanghai, “perhaps the freest city in China,” and if one is deeply embedded enough in its subculture it certainly doesn’t feel like the repressive state so often showcased on newspaper pages.

Venture beyond the French concession and the glass and steel skyscrapers, however, and the gap between those benefiting from political capital and those still living according to tradition becomes very real and visible.

This is a city grappling with these growing pangs, the effects of which will linger long after economic growth starts to slow. What form those impacts will have has yet to be determined, but biking around Shanghai gives one a good perspective on just how this city is growing. It is China, and it is not, some say. But it is certainly worth all the attention it has been getting.